Lots
to celebrate last week!
We
welcomed Tony and Gail Mariano to the statehouse for a resolution honoring
Tony’s amazing record of accomplishments at Norwich. Then Saturday was Green-Up
Day, great work, everyone! And Happy Mother’s Day, Sunday.
Unfortunately,
it did not also mark the end of our legislative session. We are carrying on
finishing the budget and other key bills into at least mid-week.
***
Tough
Decisions
We
passed a bill in the House last week – I reported it for my committee, which
had voted for it unanimously – that may very well hurt some Vermonters with a
new price spike in health insurance. We were faced with a choice: how do we
place fewer people at risk? Which is the lesser of two evils? Our hands were
tied by the failure of the federal government to make a clear decision in one
direction or the other about extending the extra subsidies for people who buy their
insurance on the health exchange, created as part of the COVID rescue package.
Though
I’d be happy to talk directly with anyone interested in an hour-long primer on
the difference between merged or unmerged individual and small group markets, I
won’t attempt to explain the hows and whys of it all, here. The best I could
tell my colleagues on the House floor was that if we guessed wrong, we could
still attempt to make up for it next year by finding a way to get a credit to
those who were hit with extra costs. We cannot legally bind a future
legislature, but those of us who may return can make good on a commitment, I
told them.
In
the meantime, a vignette on behind-the-scenes-type statehouse action: Our
committee agreed with my suggestion that we ask our state insurance regulators
to study options for next year to resolve the “merged versus unmerged” dilemma
on a more permanent basis. Adding that to the bill with only a few days left in
the session would place it at risk of not making deadlines to get it passed,
since it would need to go back to the Senate to be taken up there, be accepted
and voted on. Procedurally, that can add multiple days.
So,
I had 24 hours to get pre-agreement by the members of the Senate Committee of
jurisdiction that if we sent it back, they would immediately accept the proposed
amendment. I also needed to get agreement from House leaders to use rules
suspensions to expedite its journey to the Senate. I dashed around to gather
votes and commitments, and 24 hours later we passed the bill, with amendment,
in the House and rushed it down the hall; it was ready for Senate action on
Monday, with the skids pre-greased for approval.
Suspending
our own rules to expedite bills gets common in the crush of the final days,
since bills that do not pass will die and have to start from ground zero next
year, no matter how much time and how many witnesses were invested in the
process. About a decade ago I objected forcefully about rule suspensions that required
to vote on long, complex bills without even time to read them, and that drove a
new, informal rule (the “24-hour rule,” or sometimes, “the Donahue rule”) that
we would not vote to suspend rules with less than 24 hours unless everyone
agreed they were comfortable with moving forward. Since a suspension of rules
requires a ¾ vote, a minority party can enforce this agreement, but that has
never been necessary. It has been respected.
***
In
Conference
The
mega-economic development and workforce bill is very slowly grinding through
the process of a conference committee between Senate and House to resolve
differences. One subcomponent is a series of healthcare workforce initiatives
that originated from my Health Care Committee, so I was assigned as the representative
to an unofficial sub-conference committee to hash out those differences with
the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. We bartered among our priorities.
From
the House side, it was all about addressing the nursing shortage through
significantly increasing nursing scholarship and loan repayment funding and
providing funds for nurse faculty short-term bonuses. We also designed a
“pipeline” program modeled after an initiative at Central Vermont Medical
Center that provides funding to backfill staff positions while other staff are
paid for classroom hours while advancing their careers – a nursing assistant
becoming a registered nurse, for example. All of these include the exchange of
a student commitment to work for a year in Vermont in exchange for each year of
financial support.
The
Senate wanted to add other programs and reduce funding for ours, but we were
both held to the same total investment of $11.9 million. As one example of
compromises, we agreed to cut our pipeline program from $3 million to $2.5m
(they had cut it to $2m) to move money to a Senate program. Although we
achieved an agreement, it remains only a recommendation to the conferees on the
main bill, so we will have to watch and wait for the outcome.
I
did ensure that Norwich was included in access to the faculty funding, along
with a capital construction share of $200,000 of the $1 million allocated for
nursing simulation lab expansion among nursing programs in Vermont.
***
Being
Contrary
The
timing wasn’t planned, but I ended up on a minority side of my own party on
several important votes last week. One of the strengths I have always seen in
the Republican caucus in the Vermont House is that no one is castigated for
voting based upon one’s own judgement and principles.
I
had voted against the Clean Heat bill last month, and I made my objection
clear: while it established a program to transition away from fossil fuels, it
turned the actual decision-making over to the Public Utility Commission to
implement it. We were voting without even a clue as to what it might cost for
Vermonters. It was the same reason I voted against the Climate Solutions Act two
years ago. We were delegating our authority – and our responsibility for
consequences – to others.
The
Senate got the Clean Heat bill and added a requirement that before a single
rule for the start of any implementation could be adopted, the rules would have
to be provided to the legislature, which would have to authorize action by a
new vote. When this bill returned to the House last week, I voted for it. We
will be able to fully review the program that is developed and proposed before
anything can go into effect. That was not enough reassurance for the Governor,
who vetoed it a few days later. So, it will be back before us in the week ahead
for another override vote. With a House roll call vote of 87-38, the outcome
since not yet clear, since 25 members were not present. An override requires a 2/3rd
majority, meaning 100 votes of the full 150.
***
Overrides
It
is proving to be a very busy month for override votes. The Governor vetoed the
pension bill, which had been brokered by a negotiating team established last
year. The new plan does little to solve structural problems for the long term,
probably making some overly optimistic assumptions. But it is still an
important step towards addressing a fiscal crisis, so I supported it. In fact,
it received unanimous support. The Governor said he vetoed it on principal
despite knowing the override was inevitable. And it was, indeed. Not a single
person changed their vote based solely on the veto, so the override was also
unanimous. Still pending are override votes on the Burlington charter change
banning no fault lease terminations and the housing bill that includes a rental
housing registry, both of which I voted against.
Another
vetoed bill is still drifting on the calendar, where it will remain: a
construction contractor registry. Instead of facing the prospect of failing to
achieve an override, the majority party embedded the rejected bill into a
much-wanted housing bill. But it came with an olive branch. The threshold for
requiring registration was moved from projects costing $3,000 to $10,000. I
think that is a reasonable consumer protection effort, so I voted yes on it
this past week. It will be on the Governor’s desk shortly.
***
Tacking
Bills On Bills
Near
the end of a session, it’s often said that in the disputes between House and
Senate versions every bill becomes either a hostage or a Christmas tree. A
hostage is a bill the other side wants that is held back until they produce the
one you are waiting for. A Christmas tree is a bill that keeps gaining
“ornaments” – other bills tacked on that otherwise would be long past deadline,
or that the other side has refused to take up.
One
environmental bill I supported that came from the Senate had a separate bill
attached to it by a House committee last week. That bill had already passed the
House, but the Senate had chosen to not take it up. I had opposed that other bill
at the time. I think it does damage to our environmental court process and will
add considerable cost. I asked for the bill to be divided, but when both parts
still passed and were re-combined, I voted against the final version. We have
yet to see how the Senate will respond.
***
All
my past updates are available on my blog at
representativeannedonahue.blogspot.com. Please contact me or Ken Goslant at any
time with comments or input at adonahue@leg.state.vt.us or
kgoslant@leg.state.vt.us. It is an honor to represent you.
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